Henry Kissinger quietly acknowledged to China in 1972 that Washington could accept a communist takeover of South Vietnam if that evolved after a withdrawal of US troops -- even as the war to drive back the communists dragged on with mounting deaths.
The envoy of then US president Richard Nixon told Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai (
Kissinger's blunt remarks surfaced in a collection of papers from his years of diplomacy released on Friday by George Washington University's National Security Archive. The collection was gathered from documents available at the government's National Archives and obtained through the research group's declassification requests.
Kissinger's comments appear to lend credence to the "decent interval" theory posed by some historians who say the US was prepared to see communists take over Saigon as long as that happened long enough after a US troop departure to save face.
But Kissinger cautioned in an interview on Friday against reaching easy conclusions from his words of more than three decades ago.
"One of my objectives had to be to get Chinese acquiescence in our policy," he said.
"We succeeded in it, and then when we had achieved our goal, our domestic situation made it impossible to sustain it," he said, explaining that he meant Watergate and its consequences.
The papers consist of some 2,100 memoranda of Kissinger's secret conversations with senior officials abroad and at home from 1969 to 1977 while he served under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford as national security adviser, secretary of state and both. The collection contains more than 28,000 pages.
The meeting with Zhou took place in Beijing on June 22, 1972, during stepped-up US bombing and the mining of harbors meant to stall a North Vietnam offensive that began in the spring. China, Vietnam's ally, objected to the US course but was engaged in a historic thaw of relations with Washington.
Kissinger told Zhou that Washington respected its Hanoi enemy as a "permanent factor" and probably the "strongest entity" in the region.
"And we have had no interest in destroying it or even defeating it," he insisted.
Kissinger complained that Hanoi had made one demand in negotiations that he could never accept -- that the US force out the Saigon government.
"This isn't because of any particular personal liking for any of the individuals concerned," he said. "It is because a country cannot be asked to engage in major acts of betrayal as a basis of its foreign policy."
However, Kissinger sketched out scenarios under which communists might come to power.
While the US cannot make that happen, he said, "if, as a result of historical evolution it should happen over a period of time, if we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina."
Pressed by Zhou, he further acknowledged that a communist takeover by force might be tolerated if it happened long enough after a US withdrawal.
He said that if civil war broke out a month after a peace deal led to US withdrawal and an exchange of prisoners, Washington would probably consider that a trick and have to step back in.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese